The popularity of activities such as in-line skating and skate boarding has increased the need for hand and wrist protective devices. When one falls in these activities, one tends to put one's hands out to break the fall. In doing so, one can easily break one's wrist or cause other serious injury. Therefore, the primary object of most of these devices is to provide a rigid support to prevent the user from breaking their wrist or other serious injury.
Some protective devices, like that shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,011,596 to Chang, are cumbersome sleeve type arrangements which do not allow the user a full range of movement. Additionally, during the activity these sleeve type arrangements may become warm to the user. Another type of protective device has a design. similar to a glove without finger or thumb covers such as the wrist brace shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,584,993 to Nelson. These protective devices include a narrow rectangular piece of a hard material which extends from the palm to the wrist. The narrow pieces of hard material may slip to the side, removing the protection to the user. Additionally, the thumb is not protected in many of these devices and cannot prevent the overextension of the user's thumb called Scaphoid Bowie. Furthermore, the glove type devices are unnecessarily confining because it wraps around the palm and hand and may become warm to the user. Some of the glove type devices may use a mesh type material to avoid heat build-up. However, the mesh material may still become uncomfortable, unnecessarily confining and not prevent thumb overextension.
Therefore, what is needed is an improved wrist guard which is light weight, not confining and maintains good support.
The primary object of the present invention is to provide an improved wrist guard which optimizes protection while minimizing bulk and weight.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an improved wrist guard which can incorporate safety features such as a light for night time use and reflective tape.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a wrist guard which prevents overextension of the thumb.